"Don't take your coat off," he said suddenly. "I want you to come out again----"

"Out! Now! Look at the time, man!"

"I know--it's only eleven.... I'm catching the midnight to Dover...."

Micky stared.

"Dover! What in the world...."

Ashton turned round and looked down at the fire with a sort of embarra.s.sment.

"It's the mater," he said jerkily. "She's found out----"

Micky looked puzzled.

"Found out! What on earth...."

Ashton made an impatient gesture. He was a good-looking man, with dark eyes that could look all manner of things without in the least meaning them.

"About that girl at Eldred's," he said in a strangled voice. "You know! I told you about her. Lord, man, don't look so confoundedly ignorant! I told you about her," he broke off. "Well, some one's told the mater, and this morning...." he shrugged his shoulders. "There's been old Harry to pay! She told me if I didn't give her up she'd cut me out of her will. She would, too!" he added, in savage parenthesis.

"Well! and what did you say?"

Ashton looked round.

"Hang it all! what could I say? Told her I would, of course."

There was a sharp silence.

"I thought you liked the girl," said Micky bluntly.

The other man winced.

"So I did--so I do.... It's a rotten shame. If you'd ever seen her ...

you never have, have you?"

"No."

"Neither has the mater.... Women are all the same; because the girl has to work for her living they think she isn't fit for me to marry.... It's all a lot of rot.... However--beggars can't be choosers--and so I'm off to-night."

Micky looked at him keenly.

"You mean that you're going without a word to the girl?"

"What can I do?--I went and saw her this morning--we had a rotten scene. I meant to tell her it was all up, but somehow I couldn't; I'm too dashed fond of her, and that's the truth. I can't bear to see her cry--it makes me feel such a cur...."

He waited a moment, but Micky made no comment.

"So the only thing is to clear out," Ashton went on jerkily. "I can't afford to quarrel with the mater, you know that.... Perhaps some day...." He stopped. "After all, she can't live for ever," he added brutally.

Micky said nothing.

"So I'm off to-night," Ashton went on with an effort. "I wanted to see you--I knew I could trust you...." He fumbled in a pocket. "There's a letter here.... I've written--I couldn't see her again. I know I'm a coward, but ... well, there it is!"

He threw the letter down on the table.

"Will you go and see her, old chap, and give her that?" he asked with an effort. "Tell her I--oh, tell her what you like," he went on fiercely. "Tell her that if I could afford it...."

He stopped again, and this time the silence was unbroken for some minutes.

Then he roused himself and picked up his coat. "Well, I must be getting along. I left my baggage at the station."

He looked at Micky. "I suppose you think I'm an infernal sweep, eh?"

he asked curtly.

"No," said Micky.

He had always expected that Ashton's romance would end like this, and he felt vaguely sorry for the girl, though he had never seen her. She must have expected it, too, he thought. She must have known Ashton's position all along. He followed his friend out of the room.

"You haven't told me her address," he said suddenly.

He decided that it would be better to send the letter--he did not want to see her. He hated a scene as much as Ashton did.

Ashton was at the top of the stairs.

"It's on the letter. What have you done with it?"

There was an irritable note in his voice. "Don't leave it lying there for that man of yours to see."

Micky went back into the room. The letter lay on the table where Ashton had thrown it down.

He picked it up, glancing casually at the written address as he did so. Then suddenly his tall figure stiffened, and a curiously blank look filled his eyes, for the name scribbled there in Ashton's writing was--

"Miss Esther Shepstone," and, below it, the number of the very horrid boarding-house in the Brixton Road.

CHAPTER II

Micky stood staring at the envelope in his hand. He felt as if something had happened to paralyse all power of action.

Esther Shepstone and Ashton's girl from Eldred's were one and the same; that was all he could grasp, and it sounded absurd and impossible.

He had heard so much of this girl--Ashton had talked about her times without number--Lallie he had called her; now he came to think of it, Micky could not remember having ever heard her spoken of by any other name; and Lallie and Esther Shepstone were one and the same.

Was this, then, why she had cried, because of Ashton...?